But How Your Mood Changes, You're A Devil, Now An Angel, Suddenly Subtle And Solemn & Silent As A Monk, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk

--"You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", Pet Shop Boys

Stop me if you've heard this story before. I used to have a friend about two years ago that I thought I was pretty close to. I mean--we didn't hang out every weekend and she wasn't the first person I called when I was bored or lonely or just wanted to do something spontaneous, but we saw enough of each other for me at least to consider us decent friends. I could have been wrong. I could have been misinterpreting what we had for something more substantial than what she considered it. All I know is that two years ago she moved away and suddenly it was like the three years previous to that didn't exist any more. Suddenly it was like everything between us just died.

And it's weird because she celebrated her twenty-third birthday recently--this past Saturday, in fact--and I didn't even realize it until the day of. Facebook at least acts like information like that is still relevant to me. If it were up to me I probably would have gone blithely on all weekend not acknowledging the fact. It's not like she even remembered my birthday last month or the one from last year. And it isn't like she's even bothered to drop me a note or pick up a phone in the almost two years since we last spoke. When somebody has to tell you when a person's birthday is, you know you've stopped considering that person as being important to you at all. It's like when you're mom has to tell you to kiss your aunts good-bye because she knows you wouldn't do it on your own given the chance. Well, given the chance, I have no doubt I would have blocked any well wishes to the person in question at all.

And yet all this reflecting on how far the two of us have fallen away from one another has only stirred memories about how good we used to be. It reminds me of all those nights in the Dodger Stadium parking lot talking about how television shows aren't as good as they used to be, or how our cars were pieces of shit, or how a good whiskey or bourbon can make it feel like everything's better when it's really not. That last part we were always good at. Even when we realized that deep down we didn't have a lot in common between us, we always had passing a bottle around to keep us talking. If anything, she's the only real drinking buddy I've ever had. With most people the last thing I want to think about doing is going drinking with them. With most people, it's always a last resort, something we fall back on if we can't think of something better to do. But with her most of our nights it seemed to begin or end at the bar. And if not there, our outings always involved celebrating some random achievement with a bottle or two safely ensconced with us in the parking lot of the Glendale Galleria or the aforementioned Dodger Stadium. Whereas with most people a night out meant a decent restaurant in Pasadena or Los Angeles, my outings with her always entailed cheap Mexican food and an expensive bottle of scotch, wine, or whatever was readily available.

Maybe that's all we were to each other, somebody to listen to while we got drunk and started spouting off at the mouth. I can't remember any of our good times involving us being sober. I mean--I think we had okay times, but nothing memorable. All the good memories I have of us liking each other involved getting way too happy way too quickly. It's like we needed that social lubrication before we could be comfortable around each other. Usually that's a crutch one utilizes when one is in the company of strangers. One normally doesn't rely on such tactics with people he considers close friends. Let's face it, if you have to get drunk just to face a person then you know something's off.

I don't know--she was one of those gals that Longfellow once wrote about--when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid. And it usually revolved around whether or not we had been drinking recently. She was a foul-mouthed drunk. More than that, she was mean sometimes when she went too far. Yet she was also lively and talkative and half a million things I wish people could be when they were just acting normal. She was almost a different creature when she wasn't drinking. She was depressing and cynical; she was the definition of a person looking to escape the dreary life around her. Given the option, it was almost always preferable to have a little something before we did anything else. It made life easier. It made her easier to deal with.

Perhaps that's why we ultimately failed at the staying in touch endeavor. We just couldn't think of anything to say to one another that was real. Maybe the only kind of communication we knew how to do was fueled by alcohol and insomnia and a shared distaste for doing as we were told. That's what our friendship was, an opportunity to vent without limits. That's what made it special, that we felt like we were saying something significant for the first time to somebody significant enough to recognize it. And then when the uniqueness faded away and we found ourselves repeating the same old tired chestnuts about how we had screwed up our lives or how being lonely fucking sucked, we each stopped serving that purpose for one another. She started to see me for the empty vase that I was and I started seeing her for the ball of seething anger that she'd always been. When she moved to Philadelphia, it might have given us the excuse to walk away from a dynamic that had outlived its purpose. Or, better yet, her moving away might have given us the excuse to put things back into order.

At the end of our days as being two people who knew each other well, it might have been akin to us waking up from a dream. For awhile there we both might have wanted to get back into that dream, but it might have taken that separation to instill the distinction of what was real and what was a case of convenience.

We staked our knowledge of one another to what we learned while in the midst of many an alcohol-fueled confessional. But once the drinking stopped, that's when the process of getting to know one another stopped. Without that there was nowhere else for us to go.

Our talks, our whole knowing each other, was a castle made out of sand and two years ago may have been when the wind and waves finally caught up to us.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers